|
weekly sermon 1-3-10
All The Comfort You Need
2Corinthians 1:1-11, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy [our] brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia: (2)Grace [be] to you and peace from God our Father, and [from] the Lord Jesus Christ. (3)Blessed [be] God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; (4)Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. (5)For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. (6)And whether we be afflicted, [it is] for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, [it is] for your consolation and salvation. (7)And our hope of you [is] stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so [shall ye be] also of the consolation. (8)For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: (9)But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: (10)Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver [us]; (11)Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift [bestowed] upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf."
Good Sunday morning everyone. I started out with this passage of scripture that you may see what we are going to be discussing this morning. This passage of scripture deals with many things, but the one thing I want us to dwell on at this time is "hardship". This past year has brought about many changes in most folks lives, with the economy being in the shape it is in, the change in Presidents, the change in many laws, and the list goes on and on. In one way or another something that has happened this year has affected every single person in our nation, and mostly in a bad way. Many folks have lost their jobs, properties, houses, vehicles all taken away. We are living in one of the hardest times we have ever seen, economic wise, but what are we to do to help our own lives?
That one question is the reason for this particular passage of scripture. I want us to dive right in to these several verses and see what relief we can expect, in our times of desperate need, from anywhere.
Some of you may be in much worse than others. Some of us may never know what it feels like to be in such destitute situations as others are in right at this very moment. If you are one of the ones that are so far down, with the economy, and have nowhere to turn, this message was given, by God, just for you. If you are just one of the ones that were lucky enough to keep your job, your house, your car, but have lost something, whether it be a severe change, then this may also help your situation.
These verses, in Corinthians, start off with a prayer offering to Paul and Timothy. Paul and Timothy traveled all over the area preaching, teaching, and in general, spreading the word of God. This word of God was not very well accepted by every nation they attempted to deliver it to, so this would put them in some very desperate situations.
If you look at verse 3, we can see that, even though they have been in some very terrible times, they are offering blessings to God. They go on, in the next verse, to give God several names, the Father of our Lord, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.
There are a couple of things I want us to notice here, one of which is the most important of this message. First I want us to notice that, no matter how terrible things were going with Paul and Timothy, they first offered thanks to God. How many of us can honestly say that even though we are going through the worst times we have had in a long time, the first thing we do is offer thanks to God? Second I want us to notice the names that were given to God. All of us, who are Christians anyways, understand that God is the Father of our Lord, but they go on to call Him the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Right now, when they are in their worst times, after they offer blessings to God, they look deep, inside themselves, and understand that if they need mercy and comfort they turn to the God that created them. The dictionary defines mercy as, "something that gives evidence of divine favor; blessing". In their worst of times, they are thanking God for giving them divine favor and blessing, or mercy.
They call God the God of all comfort. Why did they call His name in THAT manner? Why not just call Him the God of comfort? When I see the word ALL I think of a story I was once told many many years ago by a missionary from the Philippines. In the story he told, it had mentioned the word all. He then began to tell everyone the real definition of all. All means just that, all, everything, the whole of everything. When you surrender to Christ and are asked to surrender all, do you realize what it is asking? You must turn over every single part of your being, every single thing you possess, every single thing that is within or with out you but partains to you. If you surrender all, you give the whole of yourself. This tells me that God gives the whole, or all of Himself to comfort us.
The next verse shows us why they wanted to have this comfort from God. It says they wanted the comfort of God so that they may be able to comfort those that were in any trouble from the comfort they have within themselves given by God. This is where you need to test God. I know you are saying, the Bible says never to test God, but I do not believe that God would mind this type of test. See if you can out give or out comfort God. You get comfort from God and then you give that comfort to someone you see that needs it because of their troubles. Are you then out of comfort? God will give you more comfort and the more you give away the more you will be given. God will never allow you to give out something that you do not have. If I wanted you to give someone a dollar and I knew it was your very last dollar, I would give you another dollar so that you would have enough to give away and still have some for yourself. This is the same thing that God does. He will give you what you need to take care of you and to take care of others. If you do not give your comfort away, then God will never give you more comfort. Your comfort, that was given, was given so that you may help others with that same comfort.
The next couple of verse really tells many things that are happening in our lives today, as has always been. Most think only of them self. They see the troubles they are having and not the troubles that others are having. Even if they do see the troubles others are having, theirs are always worse. In the 8th verse, it says 'ignorant of trouble'. This means you do not understand what trouble we are in. In most cases, folks do not understand what is going on in someone elses life. You may think you know what kind of problems someone is having, but behind closed doors, you have no idea, you are ignorant of their troubles. This is a very good reason we should never compare our troubles with someone else. We really do not understand what it is they are going through. The folks here did not know what Paul and Timothy were going through. They did not understand that they were 'pressed out of measure, above strength, and in despair for life'. What does that mean, pressed out of measure? Have you ever been put into a situation that you just knew there was no way you were going to be able to handle that situation, a situation that had you so stressed that you knew you would explode or just give up because there was no solution in sight? That is being pressed out of measure. We can not even measure the amount of trouble they were in.
Paul and Timothy, even being in the perilous troubles they were in, even to the point of losing their own lives, really done a miraculous thing next. They sentenced their own self to death, not a physical death, but a spiritual death, so that they could no longer put their trust in their own abilities. What happens when we run into trouble so bad that we have no clue how we are going to get out of it? We start attempting every single thing we can think of to solve the problem, or bring us out of this trouble. Paul and Timothy killed themselves, spiritually, so that they would no longer rely on their abilities, but would have to rely on the ability of God. They turned to God, and His ability, to bring them out of the problems they were having. The problems they were having were so severe that they could not be measured, they could not be overcome by any strength, and were so bad that it even included death, but they lay their own lives aside to trust in the God that raised folks from the dead, who is the God of mercy, and the God of ALL comfort.
Every one of us go through some type of hard time at one time or another, how we handle that hard time is what we need to focus on. Can you kill your own self, spiritually now, and stop trusting in your own ability, and put your self and your troubles in the hands of the one that created all. There is one thing that I continue to harp on constantly, if God created it, He can surely fix it. God created the earth and every single thing that is on this earth. Any problems you may encounter, have to do with something on this earth. If you are having problems with something then go to the one that made every single thing, and give Him the opportunity to fix what the problem may be.
If you do not know this God of mercy, the God of all comfort, the Father of our Lord and you would like to, then all you need to do is go to the Lord in a simple prayer with me.
Say this simple prayer with me, Dear Lord, I want you to be the Lord over my life, forgive me of my sins, and give me the gift of everlasting life. Amen.
If you have said this simple prayer, then we believe that you have received salvation. We would love to rejoice with you, so please drop us a note, in our link, to let us know and confess Jesus before man, so that we may send you a few things that we hope will help you in your new Christian walk.
With Love in Christ,
Pastor Stone
|
